


everyone's a winner

by slimeys



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female pronouns for Pidge, Flirting, M/M, barber! lance, barbershop au, grocery store keith haha, i know i do, idk not too much goin on here, its pretty much just fluff lol, keith has tats what a babe, losing at mario kart, shiro probably drinks double chocolate blended mochas with caramel drizzle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 13:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12255018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slimeys/pseuds/slimeys
Summary: Keith loses a bet. The mullet's gotta go.(Guess who gets to cut it off)





	everyone's a winner

**Author's Note:**

> wow you guys i love voltron and hate myself all at the same time
> 
> this is Not edited okay i wrote this to avoid my homework

This is bad. Like, _really_ bad.

Black sky or space or emptiness—he’s not really sure at this point—zips by his speeding craft. There’s no wind to whip his hair, or roar in his ears, but the sheer feeling of speed is not lost on him. There’s _so much_ light surrounding him and it’s goddamn disorienting; the stars are gonna blind him if the brightly colored trails don’t first.

Keith has a death grip on the controls, white-knuckled, as he desperately swerves to avoid sliding off the path and into an endless void. He’s a good pilot, driver, captain—whatever you want to call him—and vehicles of any kind have always yielded to his prodigious touch, but he knows that even the most experienced have had fatal troubles on this godforsaken path.

This is a mission he cannot fail. There’s so much at stake, especially his pride. There is no room for failure as he sees it, so like hell he’s going to let anyone catch up to him in this death chase, especially when the end is in sight. He’s close, the sting of victory on his tongue and filling up his mouth as he tenses up, his hands wrapped around the controls so tightly now they’re shaking he’s almost there c’mon just a few more feet until—

Until a blue shell comes out of nowhere, sending Keith’s Yoshi careening off of Rainbow Road, lost forever into the abyss while Luigi zooms past the finish line in a tainted win. He can only drop the Wii remote in utter despair, mouth falling open at the absolute moral atrocity he has just witnessed, at his first-ever loss of their 4th annual Mario Kart Kup. He falls onto the couch, limp and lifeless.

“HA! Suck it, Keith!” Pidge screeches, hurtling her own remote to the floor, where it thuds against the carpet. “Your age of Mario Kart tyranny is over, and the crown is mine! Viva la revolution!”

It’s four in the morning. She prances around the room, releasing terrifying battle cries as Keith contemplates where exactly he went wrong in his decision-making. He shouldn’t have laughed at Pidge when she vowed to commemorate her 16th year by beating Keith at this game. He _definitely_ shouldn’t have challenged that with a, “And what’s gonna happen when I win again? What am I gonna get besides personal glory?”

“I’ll shave my head. Straight bald,” she had said, “Smooth as when I left the womb.”

Wow. Keith didn’t think she’d be confident enough to put her own hair at stake. Pidge’d had long hair ever since they’d met in elementary school, never really expressing any desire to cut it, so try to understand his sheer surprise.

Pidge laughed at his eyebrows’ newfound acquaintance with his hairline. _“But,”_ she’d added, “If you lose, you have to chop off that mullet.”

“What’s wrong with my mullet?” This is an ongoing argument.

“What isn’t? Anyways, do we have a deal?” She held out her hand. Keith took it, and they’d shaken to seal the pact.

So here he is, in late June as the one and only loser of their personal tournament, and soon to be out one mullet. He should probably be grateful to Pidge for not making _him_ go straight bald.

 

 

* * *

 

He’s restocking bok choy that night when it hits him that he doesn’t even know where to get this haircut. The mullet is proof enough that Keith isn’t one to peruse trendy salons, and he definitely doesn’t own a pair of non-meat shears, so he can’t even hack it off on his own. And, for all that Pidge has done for him, he’s one-hundred percent never _ever_ going to trust her with sharp objects near his head. He’ll become a pincushion.

What if he looks _ugly?_ The mullet has been around for probably years now, Keith doesn’t really remember a time without it. He’s not too sure what he looks like sans mullet, so when it does come off there is a very real possibility he’ll look super hideous. Keith isn’t vain by any means, but he’s at the very least self-aware when it comes to his looks, so he’d really rather not sacrifice whatever it is he has going on for himself right now. It really can’t be _that_ bad, no matter what Pidge tells him, right? Maybe he’ll just trim it, and then if he likes it he’ll go through with the bet all the way because he doesn’t back out—

“Uh, Keith?”

He doesn’t yelp, he _doesn’t_ , and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Besides, Shiro is weirdly light on his feet for being six-three and built like a linebacker. Unrelated, but he always looks funny wearing the dark purple _Shirogane Grocery_ apron. It strains over his chest.

“Y-yeah, Shiro? You need help on the till?” Keith says, still holding the produce in his hand. God. Why did he stutter? It’s not that serious. And the bok choy is warm now, which is super gross. Putting it in the display case probably isn’t a good idea anymore.

Shiro gives him a sympathetic look, but almost every look that man puts on is sympathetic. “I was just wondering if you were doing okay. Restocking doesn’t usually take you this long, and you looked super out of it just now. Maybe go ahead and take a break.”

The ‘maybe’ is completely null, Shiro isn’t one to leave a whole lot of room for interpretation when it comes to work. He starts walking back to the front of the store when Keith blurts: “What’s a cuts?”

Fuck. That wasn’t—he didn’t want it to—why is he like this? Words, they’re annoying when they get stuck in the roof of his mouth like that and make Keith look like an idiot when all he wants is to ask Shiro where he gets a haircut.

He tries again. “What’s a... good place to get a haircut?”

To his credit, Shiro doesn’t look relieved at all or suspiciously excited (Keith realizes his choice of hairstyle is somewhat unpopular amongst his inner circle). He just smiles thoughtfully and says, without hesitation, “The shop down the street on 20th. A’s Cuts, I think you’d like it. Why the sudden interest, if I may ask?”

“I lost to Pidge.” Keith shrugs. “The mullet’s gotta go now.”

Shiro laughs. “She finally beat you at Mario Kart? Matt told me she’s been playing that game nonstop for weeks, that he walked in to wake her up one afternoon and her fingers were still moving as if she had the controller.”

That sounds like something Pidge would do. Keith shrugs again. The lettuce is still in his hand, he should really do something about it other than keep holding it. He puts it in the apron’s front pocket.

“I think I’m gonna go on that break now, Shiro. I’ll be back in an hour,” he tells him, brushing by to walk through the aisle of instant noodles and grab his wallet and windbreaker from behind the front counter.

Shiro calls after him, “If you grab coffee can you get me a—”

“Yeah.” Keith already knew he’d ask. Too-sweet coffee is one of the few pleasures his brother allows himself.

The bell clinks happily on his way out.

 

* * *

  

A’s Cuts doesn’t look like much from the outside. The front is painted goldenrod and has decent-sized windows, emblazoned with the logo in a deep red color. It doesn’t look busy. If anything, it’s empty.

Keith walks in, and soon gets greeted with a, “Hey man, we close at eight.”

A glance at his watch tells him it’s 8:09. He peers around for the source of the voice, confused, when it reveals itself from behind a door in the back that says STAFF on it.

He is tall, lean with broad shoulders and narrow hips, but Keith’s eyes immediately get drawn down to his thighs pushing against the tears in his jeans and then back up to his [hair.](http://www.menshairstyletrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/kevinluchmun-textured-crop-bangs-drop-fade-e1498107160595.jpg) The sides are short and fade neatly into his skin, but the top is longer and a little textured, with a slight fringe falling softly on his forehead.

Keith is Way Too Gay to be alone with this guy. He can feel sweat collecting on the palms of his hands and the back of his neck, so he reaches up to wipe some of it off, beginning the mutterings of a, “Sorry, I’ll come back—”

_“Dude,”_ There’s the clatter of a broom being dropped onto the linoleum. “Please don’t tell me that’s a mullet.”

Keith’s eye twitches. He crosses his arms, cocking a hip. “And if it is?” he bites.

“You know what,” the barber says as he walks over to an empty chair, turning it towards Keith and the opening some drawers to pull out a box. “I can’t let you walk out of my shop with a haircut like that. It’s my civic duty as a barber, and it would just make me look bad.”

Oh my god, what a guy. Most people do some form of cosmetology because they claim to like helping other feel good about themselves, but he probably does it out of pure self-interest.

Keith sits in the chair, gets the cape wrapped around him and fastened behind his neck. “I don’t think you’re using that term right.”

“And I don’t think I need English lessons from a guy with a mullet,” Tall Dark and Self-Interested fires back from beside him, his playful smirk showing no malice. Dark freckles are barely visible against his brown skin, and the bright blue eyes are a jarring contrast, clear like water. Despite himself, Keith can feel his cheeks turning red.

“Anyway man, what’s your name?” He takes out a comb from the box and gently starts running it through the longer portions of Keith’s hair. “I’m the best barber here, but you can just call me Lance for short.”

Lance winks. Keith hates it.

“I’m Keith,” _What should he say?_ “I’m a grocer. Or, well, I work at the grocery store not too far from here.” Didn’t he technically say that already? He’s so bad at this. He wanted to give up that last sentence as soon as it started, but Keith’s not a quitter.

Lance, even if he agrees, doesn’t let on. He lets out a little laugh. “The grocery store, huh? So you work with Shiro?” A spray bottle has made its way into his hand, dousing the back of Keith’s head with water that’s a little bit too cold.

He shouldn’t be surprised at all considering he’s the one who recommended this place, but Keith still finds himself asking, “Shiro?” as if he’s never heard of his own brother. Again, why is he like this?

The tail of a comb runs across the back of his head, and Lance twists up the section of hair before securing it with a metal clip. The buzz of clippers. “Yeah, you know: high fade with a 5 on top, bleached in the front? Oh, and biceps that could crush your head with one flex?” Lance gets a faraway look in his eyes, as most people do when they start thinking about Shiro.

“Anyways, sorry, I think he owns the grocery store? Pretty sure he’s told me that before but maybe I heard him wrong or I probably just wasn’t listening, sometimes when I’m cutting hair I get super into it so I just let the customer carry the conversation—”

Keith’s not sure if he’s fond of the way Lance is waving those clippers around while he rambles. “Uh, yeah, he’s my brother. I don’t why I asked, I guess I’m tired,” he tells him, hoping Lance will just get _to_ it already.

Get to _what,_ exactly? Keith quickly realizes that he never actually told Lance what he wanted to do with his hair, and Lance never asked. He whips around.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asks, just a little panicked. “I didn’t give you anything to go off of!”

Lance immediately pauses and looks down at Keith’s quirked eyebrows and wrinkled forehead, another smile tugging at the edges of his mouth to reveal dimples, of all things. They’re so stupid, he’s so stupid, this whole situation is stupid. Keith’s got half a mind to rip off this plastic cape and run out of the shop, but he’s _not_ a quitter.

“I’ve already got something in mind, so can you trust me? I do some sharp work, Samurai.” Lance teases with a lilting voice. He doesn’t move in on Keith’s hair just yet, almost as if he’s waiting for the okay. By the way, that nickname wasn’t okay.

All he gets is a heavy sigh but no more resistance from Keith, and it seems like that’s all he needs because before Keith knows it his hair is falling to the floor in wispy chunks, the back of his neck feeling the shop’s cool air. A few more seconds, and the clippers pause but they don’t turn off.

“You’ve got some sweet ink back here dude, why’d you let your hair cover it up?” A thumb gently brushes against the red lines creeping up Keith’s nape that make the head of a dragon, coaxing out goosebumps and then pulling away like the heat of his skin burns. It probably does.

“S-sorry.” A glance at the mirror tells Keith that Lance’s cheeks are redder than necessary.

A gulp, and then, “It’s okay. I guess I forgot about it, after a while. Not like I see my back every day.” Keith bites at the inside of his cheek after, and chews. He’s nervous? _Why_ though? It’s not like he gets tattoos to hide them from people, although revealing that one after so long of having it lying underneath his hair feels kind of vulnerable. He clears his throat. “I have more on my arms mostly.”

Okay, he has a lot more because Keith, as fate would have it, has just a little tiny impulsive streak that maybe manifests itself in the form of tattoos. The designs themselves aren’t that stupid, he thinks, it’s just that he doesn’t wait to get them until he _really_ feels like it, usually it just _happens_ when he gets stressed. And he’s not much of a patient guy. It didn’t seem that bad until the day he undressed for a shower and realized he had a sleeve and a half, connected across his chest in a low neckline. That year he dropped out of college was the main culprit.

Lance briefly turns the clippers off to change into a shorter guard before resuming his task at the back of Keith’s head. “That’s pretty dope! Wish I’d seen when you came in. I’ve always wanted a tat but my parents would probably peel it off of me, and I’m honestly not that great with needles. Nearly passed out when I got these.” He gestures to the black studs in his earlobes.

Keith laughs louder than he honestly should. It’s not that funny, except it is? Lance talks a lot, probably too much, but it’s not so much what or how much he says as it is how he says it that’s starting to endear him. The guy’s poisonous: just being around him has Keith blistering with heat and going into potential cardiac arrest. Fuck.

The clippers are grazing the sides of his nape as Keith says, “I’m not huge into piercings. Got my lobes done too but I took ‘em out a while ago.”

Lance hums, turning off the clippers once more. He takes a step back to admire his handiwork. A pair of scissors find their way into his hands and Keith barely resists the urge to groan.

“Do you trust me?”

“Hm?”

“I said, do you trust me? I know I asked earlier but I just wanna make sure, because I’m almost done and it would really suck to just now find out you aren’t down with what’s going on here.” Lance is watching him through the mirror, one of his thin little eyebrows running high on his forehead. He’s smirking, of course, but there’s a hint of hesitance.

“Yes,” Keith replies, because he has a little tiny impulsive streak that mostly manifests itself in tattoos, but today it carried him to a barbershop. Keith is not one to back out, and he’s not a quitter.

“Alright, time to get to the good stuff! Lancey Lance is here to take real good care of you.”  There’s that stupid wink again. The clip comes out of his hair, and scissors start eating away at the strands.

The little snips are quickly drowned out by their conversation, Keith telling Lance about his home back in Arizona, and Lance reciprocates with endless stories about his apparently-huge family scattered throughout Cali. He’s the fourth of seven siblings—a middle child—which isn’t all that surprising. He’s currently an undergrad, along with one of his older sisters, and is working at the shop for the summer. He plays soccer for the school’s team. Keith tells him he prefers sports without extraneous objects, like martial arts.

Suddenly, “All done,” comes way too soon for Keith’s liking.

Lance glides a comb through the mop of black hair. He opens a little jar with the label in Spanish, taking a dollop of oddly mint-green paste that he rubs into his hands before using them to muss up Keith’s hair. It smells good, fresh. Lance brushes away the hairs clinging to his neck before finally unclipping the cape and showing Keith his [masterpiece. ](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/d6/f4/af/d6f4afdbc589f2dc1f1b1453c56d2763--hair-reference-korean-boy-hairstyle.jpg)

Long on top, choppy layers falling into his eyes and giving him volume, with the back buzzed close and cleaned up. The hand mirror Lance is holding shows his dragonhead peeking from the back collar of his windbreaker. Keith almost doesn’t recognize himself, but in a good way. He looks like someone who actually goes out and does things with his life, not just play video games and work at the grocery store.

He licks his lips (bad habit), turning to look at Lance. “Thanks, it looks great.” He wants to say more, but talking isn’t one of his strengths. He really hopes the message comes across regardless.

“It’s my pleasure, man. I always do my best to help those unfortunate enough to have grown out mullets.” That awful, ugly, teasing smirk reappears.

Keith sucks on his teeth, rolling his eyes as he stands up. “Don’t make me “forget” to pay you.”

“Huh, that’s funny,” Lance says. He grabs the broom to start sweeping up hair, like he’s looking for an excuse to not meet Keith’s eyes. “What if I “forget” to charge you?”

Well. What? Who does that? People who cut hair like Lance does, don’t just do it for free, and people like Keith can’t just let him. He pulls out his wallet anyway, and withdraws two twenties.

“Here.” He holds them out to Lance, who makes no move to take them.

“No, really, it’s fine. It was for a charitable cause.” The taller boy waves away the bills, still accumulating Keith’s hair into a pile.

Keith pushes the money towards Lance more forcefully, saying, “I don’t take charity. Would you just accept my payment? It’s not that hard. Take the money.”

Lance shoots him a dead look. “I don’t want it, dude.”

“OH my god, then what _do_ you want?” Why is he being so infuriating? Keith fills his cheeks with air, puffing them out like a blowfish whenever he gets super frustrated. It makes a stupid sound when he expels it.

He is presented with a smile, a big one. “You know what? There is something you can do to pay me,” Lance says, nonchalant, as he walks over to the front desk and plucks a business card from its stand, scribbling something on it before reapproaching Keith to hand it over.

A’s Cuts, it says on one side, in red lettering on a yellow background like the sign outside. On the other, it has Lance’s information on it.

Keith stares down at it, open-mouthed, before looking back up to meet Lance’s cocky, but (adorably) flushed, expression.

“You can come back and see me in three weeks. Or sooner, if you like.”

There’s that stupid wink, again.

“And by the way, that’s my personal number.”

Looks like Keith and Pidge are both winners today.

 

* * *

 

_**Lance McClain-Rodriguez** _

_**Barber** _

~~_**(805) 557-xxxx** _ ~~

_(805) 439-xxxx_

_text me~!_

**Author's Note:**

> i saw ONE PICTuRE of 2016 taemin and this is what happened. i have a huge thing about boys with really nice haircuts, su e me
> 
> im actually really tempted to continue idk lemme know
> 
> hmu pls
> 
> fulmiinata @ tumblr


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